MISSISSIPPI "OH BOO"

You may think this is a post about Mississippi - BUT IT'S NOT!

It's about Mz. Lola - we used to call her "Mississippi". She passed away this past July, but her spirit is still with us and she's been on my mind lately. We didn't always see eye to eye on many things (hardly ANY) but we loved her and her family just the same and had many great meals and holidays together.

This was the first in quite a few years our mountain family wasn't together for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and it was then I realized it was transition time.

Their family is what she liked to call, "LARGE AND IN CHARGE!" - yes, the three of them each weighed either close to or well over 300# apiece - that's a half-ton to you city folks. She used to tell me that I looked "poor" and when I questioned her about that, she said, "You know - too skinny!"

Mississippi is an entirely different country if you've never been there...

One Fourth of July, we had a big shindig/barbecue/potluck and theirs and a few other families came - They kept laughing and saying something at the table while nudging each other out of their way which I couldn't make out and finally had to ask them what was so funny - sure they were making fun of my food!

These larger-than-life people were saying, "There goes the buffet!" each time someone approached the food table - when I questioned them further they said that when their family would go to a chinese buffet, if a large person would come in, they'd look at one another and in unison say, "There goes the buffet." As in the other overweight people were going to take all the good stuff!

...oh boo...